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Dyeing. What I know for sure.

What I know for sure is that I don’t know very much about dyeing cotton. And I know that it is VERY different than dyeing wool and protein fibers, which I know a lot about. So I am reluctant to start, and then when I finally do, my results are not as expected. But like I said in my last post, you just have to try.

What happened is kind of funny. I had planned for a long time to get out there and dye some cotton. So then I decided to go through my hand-dyed fabrics and see what colors I needed. Well….I had a lot of hand-dyed fabrics. I did not feel any inspiration as I re-folded them and put them in color families. I guess I don’t need to dye any new fabrics right now. The very next day I went to the Cherrywood site and thought, I need to buy some of these fabrics! And that’s when I realized that I could probably try to dye some myself.

I looked at the colors I wanted, and wrote down some formulas to try. I was more careful about measuring than I have been in my past cotton dyeing experiments. Most of the colors I got were not nearly as intense as I hoped for. In thinking it over, I believe I did not use as much dye as is recommended. The problem I have is that there seems to be SO MUCH dye that is not retained in the fabric. But perhaps I need to think of that as “colored water” and not wasted dye.

The solid colors I dyed.

I had some printed fabric that I over dyed.

The most intense colors I got! A complete surprise. I used three leftover dyes, and put part of the fabric in a jar, then added more fabric and the second dye, followed by the rest of the fabric and the last dye. So much better than I anticipated!

I formulated a plan. I would call Pro-Chem and ask them about the repeated rinsing and the wasted dye. And I would ask if they could tell me the Pro MX dye colors that would correspond to the Sabreset dye colors that I have used for so long on wool.

Let me just say this: PRO-CHEM ROCKS! Just as I remembered, a real person answered the phone. As I started to ask the question, she said, let me transfer you directly to the lab. ANOTHER real person answered the phone. Sometimes when I am asking for directions or advice, the person seems to be somewhat impatient, and so I get nervous and it takes me even longer to ask my questions (so I usually have my questions all written down ahead of time.) This woman did not sound impatient at all. She understood exactly what and why I was asking. She said that is a common problem when you go from dyeing wool to dyeing cotton–you are used to the dye exhausting and the water being clear. And she explained that this dye is so reactive that it actually bonds to the water! (so I wasn’t far off when I said I would try to think of it as colored water!) She couldn’t tell me the corresponding colors (Sabreset to Pro MX) but she said that would be a great idea if it could be done. And she said, “call back any time!” I felt so much better after talking to her.

I also re-watched portions of the Jane Dunnewald online Craftsy class on dyeing, and I studied the Pro MX color chart and compared it to the Sabreset chart. And I decided that there were just a few more colors that I need to order. And I printed out the Pro-Chem instruction sheet on low water immersion dyeing. Tonight I have three yards of muslin being pre-washed, and tomorrow I will try again to dye three deep colors.